History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c19.218

v2.c19.218

The word kāyastha does not occur in the ancient dharma-sūtras of Gautama, Āpastamba, Baudhāyana, or Vasiṣṭha nor in the Manusmṛti. The Viṣṇu Dh. S. VII. 3 defines a public document (rājasākṣika) as one written in the royal court or office by a kāyastha appointed by the king and attested by the hand of the superintendent of the office.¹⁸² These words suggest that the kāyastha was an officer and that there is nothing about a caste here. Yāj. I. 322 calls upon the king to protect the subjects from the harassment of cāṭas (rogues), thieves, bad characters, desperadoes and the like and particularly of kāyasthas. The Mit. explains that kāyasthas are accountants and scribes, are favourites of the king and very cunning. Uśanas¹⁸³ (35) holds the kāyasthas to be a caste and gives an uncomplimentary derivation of the name by saying that it is compounded of the first letters of *kāka* (crow), Yama and *sthapati* to convey the three attributes of greed, cruelty and the spoliation (or paring), characteristic of the three. The Veda-Vyāsa smṛti¹⁸⁴ (I. 10-11) includes the kāyastha among śūdras along with barbers, potters and others. Sumantu quoted in the Par. M. II part I p. 383 makes the food of a lekhaka along with that of oilmen and others unfit for a brāhmaṇa¹⁸⁵. Lekhaka is obviously a caste here, but whether it is the kāyastha caste is doubtful. Bṛhaspati as quoted in the Smṛticandrikā (vyavahāra) speaks of the gaṇaka and lekhaka as two persons to be associated with a judge in a court of justice and says they were to be *dvijas*. Vide also Aparārka p. 600. Therefore both these were only officers and not members of a particular caste. In the Mṛcchakaṭika (Act IX) a śreṣṭhin and kāyastha are associated with the judge. So the kāyastha seems to be the same as the lekhaka of Bṛhaspati and as a mere official. In the first centuries of the Christian era the kāyastha was merely an officer and the word was possibly derived from or is a Sanskrit approximation of some foreign word for an officer, though in some parts of the country (as shown by Uśanas and Veda-Vyāsa) the kāyasthas also had come to form a caste in medieval times.